- "Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we'll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A dark knight."
- ―Jim Gordon[src]
James 'Jim' Gordon is portrayed by Gary Oldman in Nolan's film series.
Biography
Batman Begins
- "I'm no rat! In a town this bent, who's there to rat to, anyway?"
- ―Sgt. Jim Gordon [src]
Sgt. Gordon comforting a young Bruce.
The film partly concerns Gordon's rise from beat cop to Sergeant and, by the end of the film, Lieutenant. He did his best to comfort the ten-year-old Bruce Wayne after the murder of his parents, when he was a young man, and Wayne later recognizes him as one of the few honest police officers in the city and would always remember his kindness as it gave Bruce the strength he needed after his parents' death. Seventeen to eighteen years later, after being promoted as a detective-sergeant on the force, while working late in his office, Bruce, wearing a ski-mask, visited Gordon's office, to ask Gordon about Carmine Falcone's criminal operation and the police inability to stop the notorious crimelord. When Bruce threatens Gordon with a common office stapler, which was thought to be a pistol, Bruce suggested that they form an alliance.
Gordon's inspiration for the Bat-signal.
This is kept secret from all other police officers, with Gordon proving pivotal in Batman's defeat of Ra's al Ghul by driving the Batmobile to destroy the Gotham monorail tracks and prevent the madman from vaporising the water supply. James Gordon's involvement in saving Gotham results in his promotion to the rank of lieutenant. He developed a Bat-Signal with the department's spare searchlight to summon Batman in times of need. Gordon called the Batman to announce his promotion on the force, his appreciation to the Dark Knight, and also to discuss a criminal whose identity is a mystery. The criminal has committed an armed robbery and double homicide, with an apparent taste for theatrics, leaving a calling card: a Joker playing card.
The Dark Knight
- James Gordon, Jr.: “Did Batman save you daddy?”
- Lt. James Gordon: “Actually, this time I saved him.”
- ―Gordon and his son[src]
Lt. Gordon viewing the threat against Harvey Dent.
During the second film in the Nolan series, Gordon is the leader of GCPD's Major Crime Unit and has been working with Batman and newly elected DA Harvey Dent to apprehend the new leaders of Carmine Falcone's gang. This is his main concern before the Joker comes into the mix and puts out hits on Commisioner Loeb, Judge Surrillo, and Harvey Dent.
Gordon manages to get to Loeb's office in time and block it off, but the Commisioner drinks a glass of whiskey that is laced with acid; killing him. Judge Surrillo is also killed by a car bomb on the other side of town, but Dent is saved by Bruce Wayne as the Joker comes to kill him personally at a fundraiser. Gordon is seemingly killed taking a bullet from the Joker meant for the Mayor at Loeb's funeral, a fact that Gordon exploits to work undercover and set up a plan to capture the Joker.
Newly promoted Commissioner James Gordon.
With Loeb's death leaving his rank open, Gordon is then promoted to Commisioner after the Joker is apprehended. But things only get worse as time goes on. While the Joker is in prison, his thugs then kidnap Dent and Rachel Dawes and take them to two separate locations rigged with bombs and tubs of gasoline. Batman hears about this and tortures the Joker in the interrogation room to find out where they are, but the mastermind switches the locations; Batman then goes after Rachel while Gordon goes after Dent, meaning they were actually going after the opposite person. When Batman discovers Harvey instead of Rachel, he hesitates out of fear, but rescues him only seconds before the building ignites and catches the left side of Dent's face on fire. At the other location, Gordon is not able to save Rachel and she is killed when the building explodes.
Dent, now scarred horribly on his left side, takes Gordon's family hostage after the Joker convinces him to take his frustration on those responsible for Rachel's death.
While Dent holds Gordon's son at gunpoint, Jim pleads relentlessly to have him let his son go. But Dent flips the coin, only to be tackled by Batman. Dent falls to the ground motionless, but Batman holds onto the building's siding and hands Gordon's son back before the police storm the location. Batman tells Gordon to blame all the people Dent has killed on him as he flees into the night.
Gordon is seen during one of the last scenes in the film, destroying the Bat-Signal while being surrounded by a group of cops who now hate Batman due to the murders that he took the blame for.
The Dark Knight Rises
Gordon in The Dark Knight Rises
Eight Years have passed since the Joker terror spree, Police officials are saying that the Mayor was planning to fire Gordon from the GCPD in the upcoming Spring despite his heroic services due to the peacetimes making him unnecessary.
While Gotham seems to be blossoming for the first time in decades, Gordon's life has taken a turn for the worse over the passage of eight years. His guilt over the city being saved by a lie, honoring a madman (Harvey Dent) who attempted to murder his son, and the condemnation of the man (Batman) who saved his son and the city becomes a heavy burden that eats away at him. His wife, Barbara, also leaves him and Gordon is forced to settle for a divorce while his wife takes their children to live in Cleveland.
On the anniversary of The Joker's capture and Harvey Dent's death, a memorial ceremony is held in Dent's honor, of whom the public hails as a hero for the imprisonment of thousands of criminals, at Wayne Manor. With the newly instated Dent Act, every criminal connected to the mob is imprisoned and denied parole, regardless of how power and wealth they may have had, effectively and completely wiping out all organized crime from Gotham.
However, Gordon believes that enough time has passed to finally reveal the truth behind Dent's descent into madness in his speech at the memorial, but relents at the last minute for fear that it would undo eight years of progressive peace. As the days go on, Gordon realizes that Gotham is once again being targeted by the League of Shadows, now under the control of a brutal mercenary with connections to the late Ra's al Ghul named Bane. Running into Bane's headquarters, constructed underneath Gotham in the sewers, during a chase with his men, Bane steals Gordon's speech off of him and Gordon is shot by one of Bane's associates, but is able to roll into the ravine to escape back outside.
He is found in fatal condition by John Blake, a young cop with a strong sense of morale, and is sent to the Gotham hospital, requesting that Batman must come to see him. Blake relays the message to Bruce Wayne himself, having deduced his identity through logical deduction and persuades him to visit Gordon. As Wayne does so, wearing a ski mask, Gordon asks his old friend and ally to return to Gotham as their savior as evil has once again emerged. Wayne finally realizes that he must return and retrains himself, receives the latest technology for Lucius Fox, and comes back as Batman just as Bane orchestrates a massive attack on Gotham's stock exchange to hack into Wayne Enterprises account and bankrupt the company with the use of Wayne fingerprints, pilfered from his Manor by Selina Kyle.
As Batman pursues this new threat to Gotham, he is chased by hundreds of police vehicles as Gordon smiles watching the coverage, content that his strongest ally and best hope for Gotham has finally returned after eight years. However, as Bane's plans progress more rapidly, Gordon promotes Blake to detective and orders every officer on the force to attack Bane's stronghold underground to finally smoke him out of hiding. This order later turns out to be a huge mistake as Bane detonated hundreds of explosives all over Gotham, killing thousands of citizens, including the Mayor, cutting Gotham off from the rest of the world, and trapping the entire police force underground.
As Bane is fully aware that Gordon is still in the hospital, he sends a handful of his mercenaries to murder the commissioner. While Blake attempts to save Gordon, Gordon takes out his attackers himself before they could even lay a finger on him. Gordon and Blake go into hiding and could only watch in horror as Bane reveals his plans to hold the city hostage and institute his own regime under the threat of detonating a nuclear bomb, formally part of a Wayne generator meant to serve as renewable energy, and gives the detonator to an associate of his his, Talia al Ghul.
The situations reaches the pinnacle of destruction when Bane reads Gordon's speech to all of Gotham at City Hall, revealing that Dent was not the hero he was believed to be. Bane then releases all the Blackgate prisoners and begins to brutally drag all the rich and powerful from their homes and performed mass executions of them in a kangaroo court headed by Jonathan Crane. Blake is disgusted at Gordon's part in Dent's coverup, but Gordon admits that he was not proud, but that it was a necessary course of action to save the city at the time.
With police officers being ruthlessly hunted down, Gotham City under Bane's complete control, and the nuclear bomb set to detonate in several months, Gordon and several surviving officers form a resistance, but are impeded at every chance they attempt to overthrow Bane and find the bomb. They are eventually all rounded up and sentenced into exile; forced to walk over the fragile sheet of ice over the water separating Gotham from the mainland.
However, Batman finally returns back to Gotham, in prime condition once more, and rescues Gordon and his associates, frees the officers trapped in the sewers, and gives Gordon the device needed to jam the signal between the bomb and the detonator. While Gordon attempts to find the mercenaries' truck that holds the bomb, the entire police force and Batman engage Bane and his forces at City Hall, cultivating in an extremely brutal war where hundreds of lives are lost.
Batman is able to finally defeat Bane, damaging his life support system and has him at his mercy until Miranda Tate, a Wayne Company executive, reveals herself as Talia, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and planned the entire operation with Bane in honor of her father. As she prepares to set the bomb off, Gordon finally locates it and jams the signal, making Talia's detonator useless.
However, the bomb had a failsafe implemented in that it would detonate within ten minutes if the signal is jammed. Talia leaves Batman at Bane's mercy and takes control of the truck containing the bomb, intent on keeping it from everyone until it finally detonates. The tide turns however when Bane is killed by Selina Kyle and Batman is able to incapacitate Talia's vehicle containing the bomb. With her last breaths, Talia reveals that she has flooded the corridors containing the control panel needed to deavtivate the bomb and dies. Batman realizes that his only choice is to fly the bomb away from Gotham so that it blows up in a safe location.
As Batman leaves with the bomb in tow in his new flying vehicle, "The Bat", Gordon finally asks the hero who he really is. Batman states that he was the boy he comforted all those years ago with a brown jacket and leaves as Gordon remembers in shock who that young boy was, Bruce Wayne. Batman flies the bomb out of Gotham's range and seemingly sacrifices himself in the explosion, saving Gotham from annihilation for a third time.
Gotham is finally secured again, all prisoner are recaptured, the League of Shadows is finished, and Gotham is finally at peace. Gordon is finally relieved to commemorate the true hero of Gotham, Batman, with a statue in his honor at City Hall. Gordon, Fox, Blake, and Alfred hold a private funeral ceremony for Bruce Wayne at his mansion, knowing that Bruce was not the spoiled brat Gotham believed him to be, but a hero who sacrificed everything to ensure no one felt the same pain he felt as a child.
As Gordon repairs the Bat Signal, he is finally content once more in his life and the peace that Gotham finally has in an honest light. Bruce Wayne would eventually be revealed to be alive, having finally moved on from Gotham to start a life with Selina Kyle. While Fox, Alfred, and Blake all receive some form of evidence or direct proof on this event, it is unknown if Gordon ever finds out. Regardless, Gordon remains the police commissioner of a city he can finally be proud to call his own, free of organized crime, corrupt cops and public officials, and honoring the proper hero with no dishonest lies in the shadows.
Friendship With Batman
- Sgt. Jim Gordon: “You're just one man?”
- Batman: “Now we're two.”
- Sgt. Jim Gordon: “We?”
- — Gordon and Batman[src]
Commissioner James Gordon.
Although he does not condone vigilantes, Gordon sees that it is necessary to operate outside of laws in the crime-filled Gotham City, especially since most members of Gotham's police department are mired in corruption. Before the emergence of Batman, he was increasingly jaded and disillusioned of the corruptions around him, disdaining his fellow officers even as he acknowledges that he cannot do anything about it, both due to his own refusal to be a 'rat' and a lack of anyone he could actually tell. The arrival of the Dark Knight gives the police detective the hope he needs to build a better Gotham for his wife and children. After being promoted as a lieutenant, he is determined to clean the department up from within. The detective is still clueless of who Batman is, or that he is one of the people who inspired the Dark Knight to be what he is now. At the end of the Dark Knight he is one of the few people who knows about Batman being innocent and that Dent was responsible for the murders Batman took the blame for.
Vehicles
- "I've gotta get me one of those."
- ―Sgt. Jim Gordon referring to the Tumbler
- In Batman Begins, Gordon uses the Tumbler to destroy the suspended rail carrying the subway carriage Ra's al Ghul is on.
- Gordon takes the Gotham City subway to and from work, but when involved with a case, he will usually ride along in a squad car with another police officer.
Behind the scenes
- In the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, Gordon is hooked up to life support while telling Bruce Wayne that Batman needs to return due to a new evil rising. The trailer also implies that he is somewhat aware of the connection between Bruce Wayne and Batman. The second trailer, released on December 19th, also reveals that the mayor was planning to fire Gordon from the GCPD in the upcoming Spring despite his heroic services due to the peacetimes making him unnecessary.
Gallery
